Nerve damage

[Kathleen Ann]

Hello Everyone!

It's been a full year since my AN surgery. Had a 3.1 AN removed by suboccipital at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. Doing great except for the back of the head and neck nerve pain. Anyone else have this? Any tips or tricks for coping with it? They gave me some Indomethacin to take but so far it only works good for me at night when I sleep to kick the pain. I've tried heat and keep my icy hot cream close at hand. Any suggestions would be great! Thanks!

[debraclark]

I also had suboccipital (retrosimoid surgery) had a 3CM tumor. Done at Jefferson Neuroscience in Phila. I am going on 7 months post op and still out of work. I have alot of problems with my neck and had been in therapy for an atrophied neck muscle, they got me back to range of motion but the pain not gone. I feel like I have a knot in my neck muscle on the surgery side, laying down aggrivates it, sometimes the jarring of just walking aggrivates it. But I have learned not to sneeze or cough or bend over too much, or lift anything heavy. Seems to aggrivate it to the point of like a migraine and I end up on the couch with heating pads, can be simply awful. Even tho I am released from theray I still have neck exercises to do 3 times per day and they do help loosen things up. The mornings and evenings are the worst. I think mine is muscle and nerve involved because when it gets to the point of a pounding headache it just pulsates on the surgery side. I also am SSD and still have some numbness, and of course the dry eye, nose and mouth so at times I end up loosing my voice too. My tips on handling (since I am only on tylenol) is moist heat, I have a bed buddy heating pad that can either be hot or cold, I choose hot and put in microwave for like 1 min and 40 seconds then it just wraps around the back of my neck. I also have a regular heat pad too, I also use them on my face if get the bad headaches. When I do that I can get it under control in like 20 mins. I just purchased a pillow too (got mine cheaper on ebay) but these are great you should check them out, they help keep your neck supported during sleep. Check out the webpage on this pillow very interesting. I have been using mine for about a week so far. Does help me sleep. http://www.arc4life.com/site/615058/page/158456 Wish I could be of more help, I plan on asking alot of questions to my surgeon at my next appointment in June after my 6 month MRI I hope I can get some answers. Take Care.

[mk]

Hi,

I also had the same problem after my retrosigmoid surgery, which aggrevated a previous neck/shoulder problem that was attributed to poor positioning while using a computer. It was very painful, I couldn't sleep, same as what you describe. Unfortunately this is a common side effect from retrosigmoid, because they cut through the sternocleidomastoid muscle.

I will second the pillow suggestion, I bought an expensive orthopedic pillow which supported my neck and it helped a lot. I was taking Tylenol for body pain (with the muscle relaxer) for quite some time, as well as Aleve, and used warm compresses for the neck. However I also had nerve pain on the back of the head, which needs the opposite: ice packs, applied every 5-10 minutes. Sometimes in the evenings, I ended up having both the warm compress on my neck and the ice pack on the back of my head!

I also did physiotherapy, and that helped too, especially because my motion was so restricted (I couldn't lift my arm all the way, and had trouble turning my head backwards). I bought a new workstation for my computer and learned how to use the mouse with my other hand.
Indeed this problem is awful and it makes it hard to get some good rest and recover. But it does get better. Even though I still feel that my neck is sore from time to time, things are pretty much back to normal.

Marianna